Katherine Choy Pioneered a Radical Ceramic Style, Establishing a Lasting Legacy in American Craft Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands: Katherine Choy and Clay Art Center On view: October 18, 2023 – February 4, 2024
Greenwich Historical Society is proud to present Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands: Katherine Choy and Clay Art Center, an exhibition of work by influential ceramic artist, educator and visionary co-founder of Clay Art Center, Katherine Choy (1927-1958). Featuring a selection of Choy’s distinctive and boundary-pushing ceramic vessels alongside never-before-seen photographs, letters, and other archival material, the exhibition charts Katherine Choy’s rapid rise to prominence and influence in the field of American studio ceramics in the mid-1950s, her indelible influence as an educator, and her dedication to forming a cooperative studio space for ceramic artists to thrive in Port Chester, N.Y.
Radical Pots & Cooperative Hands: Katherine Choy and Clay Art Center is organized by the Greenwich Historical Society with artwork loans and research support provided by Clay Art Center. The exhibition is generously supported in part by the Josie Merck Foundation. Greenwich Historical Society is located at 47 Strickland Rd., Cos Cob, Conn. Museum galleries are open Wednesdays through Sunday, from 12pm - 4pm, with museum admission. For information, please visit www.greenwichhistory.org or call (203) 869-6899.
“Katherine Choy was a pioneering figure in the emergent world of mid-twentieth century American studio ceramics, and her widely exhibited clay vessels explored many of the same formal ideas that were at play in the concurrent field of abstract expressionist painting,” says Historical Society Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Maggie Dimock. “Her technical proficiency, visionary style and personal charisma came together in the founding of the Clay Art Center in 1957, a life’s dream Choy realized with co-founder Henry Okamoto of Greenwich. This was all achieved at the young age of twenty-nine, and it is made more poignant by Choy’s unexpected death the following year. Greenwich Historical Society is privileged to partner with Clay Art Center to present this exhibition of Choy’s distinctive, groundbreaking works created during her time at Clay Art Center.”
Workshops/Lectures/Curated Tours
Public hands-on clay workshops and demonstrations, in partnership with Clay Art Center, will be offered throughout the exhibition’s run, beginning with a lecture and demonstration on wheel throwing in the style of Katherine Choy on Thursday, October 26 at 6:30 p.m., presented by Clay Art Center teaching artist Jeanne Carreau and Director Emeritus of Clay Art Center Reena Kashyap. A hands-on clay workshop dedicated to hand-building organic vase forms, led by Clay Art Center Studio Technician and past Artist-in-Residence (2022 – 2023) Avery Wells, will be offered Thursday, November 2 at 6:30 p.m.
Curator-led gallery talks will also be offered, beginning with Visionary Art Pottery and Studio Craft in Our Backyard: Leon Gambetta Volkmar and Katherine Choy, a discussion and guided tour takes place Friday November 10 at 11 a.m. The talk will explore connections between the lives and legacies of Greenwich-area ceramic artists Leon Gambetta Volkmar (1879-1959) and Katherine Choy. A prominent figure in the New York art pottery world, Volkmar’s handcrafted and sensitively glazed ceramic vessels were nationally recognized and collected broadly by connoisseurs, including the Bush-Holley House's one-time resident Emma Constant Holley MacRae. A selection of Volkmar pieces from the Greenwich Historical Society Museum Collection will be on display in the Historical Society’s Permanent Collections Gallery for the duration of the exhibition.
Born in Hong Kong to a prosperous merchant family and raised in Shanghai, Katherine Po-Yu Choy came to the United States in 1946 to enroll as a student at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. She continued her education at Mills College in California and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, studying painting and ceramics under pioneering studio potters F. Carlton Ball and Maija Grotell and textile design under Marianne Strengell. In 1952 at the age of 24 she was appointed head of ceramics at Newcomb College in New Orleans. Under Choy’s leadership the Newcomb ceramics program transitioned into a new era of freedom and experimentation. Meanwhile Choy’s profile as a nationally recognized ceramic artist known for her innovative approach to form and distinctive glazed surfaces continued to rise.
The Formation of Clay Art Center
In the spring of 1957, following her dream to establish a fully independent working studio for ceramic artists, Choy gathered a small group of like-minded artists and former students and relocated to a commercial-sized workspace on Beech Street in Port Chester,the former Good Earth Pottery company where Choy had previously worked. Under Choy’s leadership Clay Art Center for Advanced Study in Ceramics and Sculpture was formed, one of the first cooperative studios dedicated solely to creative ceramic art in the U.S., later known simply as Clay Art Center. Choy was supported in this endeavor by Clay Art Center Co-founder and potter Henry Okamoto (1922-1988), a native of Lodi, California who moved to Cos Cob, Connecticut in the mid-1950s. Through their leadership Clay Art Center’s reputation as a serious center for ceramic study and artistic production grew among American potters.
A Life Cut Short, and a Vision Endures
In 1958, the ceramic art world and Clay Art Center were rocked by Choy’s unexpected death at the young age of 30, less than a year after the Center was founded. However, under Okamoto’s oversight, Clay Art Center’s mission endured. Today Clay Art Center is the largest and most active ceramic facility in the tristate area and a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to the advancement and practice of ceramic art.
Photo credit: Katherine Choy’s hands shaping clay, 1957, From “Three Potters from China,” Craft Horizons, March/April 1957. Courtesy Clay Art Center Archives